Arthur Kenyon listened as one listens to the tale of an Eastern romance. Gavin had told him the whole story before they left London; but here in Bukharest it seemed so much easier to comprehend, amid a people careless of life and little unacquainted with death. All the gauds of passion, of love, and hatred were known to this mean city. Here, at least, it did not appear difficult to understand how Count Odin, the adventurer, having heard the history of Robert Forrester's youth and of his present wealth, had set out for England determined to profit by his knowledge. "We have no color in our roguery in London," Arthur said presently. "It's all just one drab tint--the same color as the yellow press that delights in it. Here one begins to understand why the fittest survive. You are a pretty plucky chap, Gavin, or you would not take it so easily----" "Not for a woman's sake, Arthur!" "Oh, well, I suppose if one is sufficiently in love, one would hack at Cerberus for a woman's sake. I am less fettered. Here in Bukharest I begin to wonder whether I shall die for the charming Lucy or the equally beautiful Lucinda. You have no doubts. My dear old fellow, I'm afraid you're in deadly earnest." "So much in earnest, Arthur, that if I cannot go back to make Evelyn my wife, I will never go back at all." "Eros living in a dirty Roumanian hotel on ancient meats! No, by all the gods. But, tell me, does your friend Chesny think you are unwise to go to Okna?" "He says I am mad. I told him as much as I had the right to tell. Odin, the son, is a swindler; but his gypsy friends are honest. They believe that an Englishman shut up one of their heroes for twenty years; and if they can find the man who did it, they will kill him. There's the Count's chance. I am going one better by offering to take his father to England to meet the man who wronged him and say that the vendetta is at an end. A mad scheme! Yes. Well, possibly, mad schemes are better than the others sometimes, and this may be the particular instance. I will tell you when we get to Okna, if ever we get there." "Then you are plainly not an optimist." "Hush--there's your old friend the 'cellist, going home it appears. A gypsy to the finger tips, Arthur. Let us talk of the weather!" CHAPTER XXIV. THE PRICE OF WISDOM